Fidler Hammers Television Executives In Righteous Council Speech

Councilman Lew Fidler let the rage fly when it came to addressing the executives behind the Time/Warner CBS dispute at a recent City Council hearing. A Huffington Post editorial addressing the dispute, which resulted in the blacking out of CBS and Showtime for millions of New Yorkers, highlighted Fidler’s fiery hammering of executives only concerned with “the bottom line,” and not the consumer.

Fidler’s speech, which you should really watch from beginning to end just for sheer entertainment, tapped into all sorts of populist anger, including rage, disbelief and indignation, all directed at, let’s face it, totally greedy corporate scumbags. Huff Post’s Sandi Bachom compared Fidler’s speech to the famous scene from the movie Network, where character Howard Beale is “mad as hell” and “not going to take this anymore!” While Fidler didn’t direct people in the Council chambers to stick their heads out a window and scream, he didn’t mince words when he let the executives involved know how he really feels about them:

The sole purpose of this hearing is for you to understand just how angry your customers are… Not one of you gives a damn about the consumer, not one of you. You care about the bottom line… both of you. Shame on all of you… There is something wrong with all of you. And you want to charge a la carte? Every time I want to watch the Big Bang Theory I have to put 50 cents into the pot?… No one has rabbit ears anymore!

Making the situation even more insidious is the recent assault on the United State’s “net neutrality” laws, which forbids internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking access to certain content. In a must-read editorial by Brian Hedden of Bay Ridge Odyssey, Hedden notes that while ISPs like Time Warner can’t block access to CBS.com, which often provides much of their content for free online, CBS, as a content provider can block certain ISPs from gaining access to their content, in essence, violating the “spirit” of federal net neutrality laws.

Time Warner – the cable TV provider in Bay Ridge – has always been very aggressive with content providers in negotiating rebroadcast fees, same as Cablevision and other American cable TV providers. Aggressive to the point of being dicks. They haven’t been shy about temporarily pulling a station from their TV package as a means of gaining leverage, the consumer be damned.

But they haven’t gone as far as blocking a content provider from their Internet service. Not because they aren’t obnoxious enough… I’m pretty sure they are. But they’re flat out not allowed to block access. In the U.S., net neutrality is the law of the land for Internet service provider. An ISP is obligated to be neutral to what kinds of sites their customers can access, so Time Warner can’t block CBS, or any other site.

Unfortunately, the same principle does not apply to the content providers themselves. There are a number of reasons why an Internet site would block access from certain ISP’s or computer locations.

The point is, cable companies and content providers share a high level of evil in their operations, with no one side being more blameworthy than the other. For me, I have always been outraged how cable companies are granted “exclusive” territories, free to charge whatever they want for their services without fear of competition. Imagine a world where Cablevision had to compete head-to-head with Time Warner. Prices of cable and internet services would plummet as cable companies would probably do anything to keep their customers from freely switching. Instead, the companies enjoy relative government back regional monopolies, free to squeeze as much money as they can out of their consumers all while providing dingy service.

“If you’re in Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, really your only choice for wired high-speed Internet access at home is Comcast,” [Crawford] said. “If you move into an apartment in Seoul [South Korea], you have a choice of three different providers, they show up in a day because there’s so much competition, and they charge you $30 for TV and everything. Koreans when they come to the United States… actually laugh at us for how expensive and how slow [American Internet service] is.”

So there you have it, our cable companies are terrible. As a young, computer-savvy guy, I have had the ability to “cut the cord,” except for internet service. I can get all my media online via Netflix and other free streaming services, only having to suffer the minor inconvenience of watching it on my computer screen. Still, not everyone is computer savvy or willing to strain their eyes watching their favorite TV shows and movies on their computers. Most people, deservedly, want to be able to sit on their couch in front of the flat-screens and relax after a brutal day of work. As costs rise and greed wars rage between content providers and cable companies, the consumer is slowly reaching the breaking point over a service that should cost a third of what they are being charged.

I too cut the cord a long time ago and couldn’t care less about how much cable TV costs or what channels they show, that said: Lew, you’re still the man! I know you read the comments here every now and then and I’ve always had a lot of respect for you. Even though it doesn’t effect me directly, I still thank you for being on the right side and being this vocal about it. That performance got me all sorts of excited.

Kings Highway

Lew, thank you for speaking for us all. As you said, the bottom-line is always about the dollars and cents. It is shameful that Time Warner and CBS continue to hold viewers hostage whole raising our cable bills while cutting our service. Your speech and your sincere desire to see that is right is done was wonderful.

Brightonresident

If the City Council is so outraged by what is happening, whay haven’t they done anything to change the laws and rules to fix the problem. Outrage is one thing, but show some backbone and fix the problem that the franchise laws created by the City Council caused!

lew from Brooklyn

Dear BR,
If you listened to the whole clip, you heard me refer to just being too late 3 years ago.
Tho the Council does not negotiate franchises, we do play a role in approving them. Unfortunately, once approved, they remain in effect and unalterable for kegthy periods of time. Thus, we have no power to effect such change in the interim…and, of course, legislative changes are impossible as they are pre- empted by the FCC and Federal law.
I did, however, indicate that I would be watching from whatever role I have— in government or as a citizen—when those franchises come up again to ensure that changes are made.
Lew from Brooklyn

Brightonresident

Lew, thank you for responding. However, the City Council changes things all the time0 kike changing the Term Limit Law, which the citizens of this City voted for twice! Th City Council approved the Franchise law, so NOW FIX IT!!!

Lew from Brooklyn

If I had the space, I would explain the constitutional concept of pre-emotion. The long and short of it is that the issues that need to be repaired have been in the hands of Congress at least since the cable tv act of 1992. We cannot legislate over the Congress which seems just as afraid of tackling this issue as anybody.
Lew

lew from Brooklyn

Damn spell check…that was pre-emption.
Lew

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanne001 Lisanne!

Television? How quaint!

Serious folks, I’m glad that some people have figured out that its not good guys and bad guys in this scenarios, it’s all bad guys. And Congress is to be blamed for pushing digital as the only means of broadcasting. This has forced many people into getting cable, as the over the air signals are difficult for many viewers to get consistently.

Councilman Fidler has said what these corporate executives needed to hear. We’re not fooled. Both sides need to get their act together.

http://www.sheepsheadbites.com/ Ned Berke

You’re right, it’s all bad guys, but the switch to digital that the government mandated is not a bad thing. It opened up a broad swath of spectrum for public use, and has also played a crucial role in breaking one of those other exploitative industries: the cell phone industry. The problem with digital OTA television broadcasts is really one of hardware, and I think it’s one that will be overcome in time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanne001 Lisanne!

The FCC in 1982 devised a plan to increase the number of unique broadcasters and provide the means to transit local oriented content at a much lower expense than that of conventional broadcasters. It created a license class for low-power transmissions. While the reception area for these stations is somewhat smaller than that of full power stations, their signal is usually adequate for serving small towns and the immediate surrounding areas.

The plan at its best gave communities the ability to broadcast public meetings and other community oriented content. And since interference problems were minute, a large number of local broadcasters could exist in any transmission area, increasing choices.

LPTV stations were not required to cease analog broadcasting on June 12th of 2009. In some places they have continued to hold an audience. In others, the switch of conventional TV stations to digital has diminished interest in these broadcasts. Some LPTV stations have now decided to broadcast in both analog and digital. Needless to say, this has increased their cost of operation. And a few have been unable to fund their transition, and have folded as a result.

On September 1, 2015 these stations will no longer be permitted to broadcast an analog signal. But will the technical problems of digital reception be solved by then?